What is a political party? What is the role of political parties? Let’s dig in to find more about political parties.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this topic, you are expected to;
A political party refers to an organized group of people with the same ideology or those with the same political positions, and who field candidates for elections to try and get them elected therefore implementing the agenda of the party.
Many political parties have an ideological core while others do not. Many countries like India and Germany have several significant political parties while other nations like China and Cuba have one-party systems. The United States practices a two-party system but it also has smaller parties that also participate.
ORIGIN OF POLITICAL PARTIES
Almost all democratic countries have strong political parties. Many political scientists consider countries that have less than two parties to be autocratic. However, a country with several competitive parties is not necessarily democratic, and the politics of many autocratic countries are organized around a dominant political party. Some of the explanations for how and why political parties are such a crucial part of modern states include;
SOCIAL CLEVAGES
One of the main explanations of why political parties exist is that they arise from existing divisions among the people. This model shows that parties may arise from variations in an electorate, and can adjust themselves to the patterns in the electorate.
INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP INCENTIVES
Another explanation for the formation of parties is that they provide compatible incentives for candidates and legislators. A reason that this incentive exists is that these parties can solve certain legislative challenges that a legislature of unaffiliated members might face.
PARTIES OF HEURISTICS
Parties are necessary because they provide a chance for many individuals to participate in politics since they provide a massively simplifying heuristic that allows people to make informed choices with a much lower cognitive cost. Without political parties, electors would have to evaluate every candidate in every election that they are eligible to vote in. parties enable electors to make judgments concerning a few groups instead of a much larger number of individuals.
STRUCTURE
A political party is led by a political leader (the most powerful person and also the spokesperson representing the party), a party secretary (maintains the records and daily work of the party), party treasurer (responsible for membership dues) and party chair (who is responsible for forming strategies for recruiting as well as retaining party members. He or she also chairs party meetings).
It is customary for members of a political party to form wings for current or prospective party members, most of these fall into the following two categories;
